MOSCOW — The greatest disappointment of the postcommunist era has been the failure of the West — particularly Europe — to build a successful relationship with Russia.
Most policymakers and experts expected that, after an inevitably troublesome period of transition, Russia would join the United States and Europe in a strategic and economic partnership, based on shared interests and values. The pace of change might be doubtful, but not its direction. Vladimir Putin's massive electoral triumph in last week's Duma elections has put the lie to that notion.
Today, shared interests have shrunk and values have diverged. A resurgent Russia is the world's foremost revisionist power, rejecting a status quo predicated on the notion that the West won the Cold War. Its two superpower assets — nuclear weapons and energy — make it a potential leader of all those lesser powers dissatisfied with their position in the world. A potential Russia-China axis based on shared resistance to U.S. hegemony carries the seeds of a new bipolarity.